Axl crouched just beyond the frankly terrifying illusion and defensive array around the apparently empty hilltop in front of him. He could barely sense it was there with [Mana Shroud] at its maximum boosting of his Perception, but a rock thrown at the invisible barrier was obliterated by a surge of unattuned Mana, emphasized by the remnants of beasts forming a neat circle around the clearing's edge. On his side of the barrier, there was a graveyard of broken flesh and bones over blood-soaked soil, on the other, neat and prim grass of a light green, as if manicured into an even sheen.

  He slowly walked alongside the barrier, searching for the entrance point Aria had indicated should be there. It was nearly twenty minutes of waiting and careful observation, and he was starting to worry, his 1-hour deadline quickly passing by as he sat on his ass.

  Suddenly, he saw it, a seam in the impenetrable wall barely as wide as his body appeared far up, coursing across the surface of the huge dome. It was coming slightly from the left side and passing quickly. Without hesitation, Axl used [Bolting Motion] to leap through the opening right as it passed in front of him.

  He landed on the neat grass beyond and quickly crouched, heart racing at how close that had been—if he'd been any slower, he'd have been caught by the reforming wall and lose whatever parts of his body were on the other side, or maybe worst. This only made this even more worth it, since with a stronghold this defensible, it would make anything else he had to do in the vale much, much easier. And at the top of the list was finding a safe place to establish Terrania's Foundational Nexus.

  No time to lose, Axl moved forward, wary that there was barely any cover to be had as he approached the large mansion now visible at the top of the hill. It was five stories high in places, with three turrets off to one side of the building, and made of an odd mishmash of materials and angles, all heavy stone of differing colors, clashing decoration flourishing some aspects of the building, while others were bare stone.

  Surrounding the building was a neat and tidy garden with a wild assortment of plants, flowers, and herbs. The garden only started halfway up to the hilltop, but was still quite large, encircling the mansion entirely. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw two figures methodically moving between rows, one with a small scythe in hand, much like the gardener he had fought at the crossroads.

  Glad he had the camouflage array active, he crouched and slowly made his way to a line of chest-high bushes growing bright orange fruit the size of bullets. All the while cursing Aria, who had said there was only one sentient being within the manor—but as he approached, Axl noticed the two figures looked a bit strange, the limbs beneath their simple work coveralls like straight pieces of wood joined to their bodies in a socket. Right, only one sentient being.

  He shook his head at the casual wonders in this world, even the mythical robotic automata that were possible at the peak of Terrania’s golden age before the Mana Arrival back in Sol were possible here. Not for the first time, he wondered what the Vikam could have wanted from humanity's barren rocks of dirt and endless toil when they had access to worlds of endless potential like this.

  Still, Axl continued his careful, slow approach to the mansion, trying not to step on any twigs or draw the attention of the two working creatures, even if they seemed entirely focused on their work. Soon, he was just a short stone walkway away from the main building, to a side door that was clearly meant to access the garden. If there was a main entrance, it was facing away from him, and Axl didn’t want to waste any more time scuttling around, as he was already half done with his time limit.

  Taking one long look around, noting the two workers still at it and a third even further away with his back turned, Axl made a quick, silent sprint to the door, luckily finding it unlocked and entering, quietly closing it behind him. Beyond was a small store room with gardening equipment and various sacks and pouches of soil and fertilizer, the smell of loamy earth not as strong as he expected, but Axl ignored all that and went to the door at the far side of the room, which opened up to a hallway that extended left and right.

  It was simply designed, a bare, even grey stone, clearly a humbler part of the building, what Aria called a servitor pathway, and he followed her instructions to turn left then past three doors, then right, that door opening into a far wider hallway of luxurious red carpet and walls decorated with various artwork tastefully arranged beneath a high, vaulted ceiling.

  Axl paused, noticing movement further down the hallway, seeing another figure walk down the rich hallway. This one didn't wear simple coveralls like the workers outside, but a highly embroidered dress in tasteful black and white, with accents in red, and she carried a large bouquet of white flowers in her arms. Even if the clothing covered the figure's entire apparently female body, Axl could see the same wooden-looking skin in her hands and face. There was also a very subtle seam where the head connected to the neck, even if she seemed to have been built with more attention to detail than the automata outside.

  Axl held his breath as she walked down the hall, hoping she wouldn’t notice the partially opened door, [Mana Shroud] and his Charisma sensing this was a much more powerful figure than those outside, at the very least in the middle of F-Grade, but it was hard to tell since she was so efficient with her Mana leakage. He braced himself for having to fight, expecting a caretaker of this place not to miss that a door that should have been closed was opened a crack, but before she could get too close, she left through one of the other doors to the side.

  Not letting himself relax, Axl quickly left for the hallway and turned away from where the servant came from, trying to find the orange-colored door that Aria described. He hoped it would be on the ground floor, since he didn't really have the time to carefully comb the entire place. He passed by many doors, all labeled with elegant cursive Saptish on a small metal placard, each tempting him in a different way—library, accessory alchemical workshop, armory, array control room.

  Hot damn, I'll owe the sleepy elf big time if I manage to get this place.

  Nearly dying of curiosity, Axl ignored all the rooms, looking for the orange one, finding it right in the middle of the hallway, almost where it opened up into a large atrium, which he was happy to avoid. He paused outside the room and scanned the door with [Mana Shroud], checking for any traps or detection arrays, but found nothing. Would I even be able to see any E-Grade defenses?

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  Still, this felt like a more important room than the others, the door larger and decorated more meticulously, so he felt he needed to be careful. Taking one last look left and right, he opened the door, noted no caretakers inside, and stepped in, closing it behind him as quietly as he could, thankful that the handle didn’t squeak and that the door closed in eerie silence, perfectly seamlessly flush in the doorframe. This was a surprise, that an apparently abandoned building would look new, better than new, really. Was this because it was an E-Grade building?

  Axl smiled as he beheld the large, luxurious bedroom, large floor-to-ceiling windows taking up the entire far wall, showing a decorative section of walled garden beyond, filled with beautiful statues and various kinds of trees around a placid pond with a softly gurgling fountain in its middle. He only skimmed the rest of the luxurious furniture before snapping his attention to the large bed at the far end of the room, to the figure half-covered by a plain white sheet. This was the last tidbit that Aria had told him, that he would find the key to the manor around the neck of the manor's owner, at his final resting place.

  The elf looked very well-preserved for a corpse, his yellow skin shriveled, but not even close to as badly wrinkled as the elderly back an Ost. The room smelt heavily of something sharp and dry, and as Axl approached the bed, he noticed the body was evenly surrounded by packages of dried herb, likely the source of the smell and preservation.

  Sorry for the disrespect, buddy, Axl thought, and he lifted the man's shirt to get the controlling pendant for the manor. With twenty minutes to spare for the quest, even.

  But there was nothing there.

  Axl's heart lurched as he paused over the body, then started to pat it down, hoping it was just dislodged or something. Then he turned it over, the body like a rigid plank of wood, [Mana Shroud] burning his Perception as much as he could. He could see and feel every single wrinkle and divot in that damn bed, every piece of herb that escaped the preserving pouches. But no pendant.

  With increasing disregard for being subtle, Axl checked inside the pillows and the mattress itself, then each of the drawers and cabinets inside the room, all empty. After a minute or two of frantic upheaval, drawers left open or splayed out onto the floor to look for secret compartments, and the large dresser to the side tipped over to see if something was hidden in the wall behind it. All for nothing.

  Axl took a deep breath, recentering his focus. Alright, he clearly had misunderstood something from Aria's instructions, even if they seemed very straightforward. He thought back to the short elf sitting straight-backed, sipping her tea as she looked out to the middle distance, the air's Mana dancing oddly about her.

  "In exactly seventeen minutes from when I put this teacup down, the barrier will be able to be crossed with precision. Beyond, there is but one sentient threat, a vicious sorrow to be avoided. Within the manor, enter the servitor passage, turn left then the first door passed three. Among the hallways of red, beyond the orange door is the dead master of the manor. The key to the manor is a simple pendant around the neck of the true master, at his final resting place."

  He grunted to himself, having forgotten that one tidbit of that final line referring to the true master. Meaning this body wasn't that one at all. So why the slit even mention this one!

  Axl took another pair of breaths to regain his calm, trying not to dwell on the fact he only had fifteen more minutes to find the key to the manor—not nearly enough time to comb through the massive building, even not counting that he'd have to dodge the F-Grade caretakers prowling the hallways.

  But then Axl thought of how Aria talked about the single threat, that it was a "vicious sorrow," at first thinking it was some long-lost descendant of the cultivator still around somehow—but that would mean the manor wasn't abandoned. Unless the person mourning the loss wasn’t a cultivator at all, say a caretaker that would bring flowers to the true master's resting place.

  Taking out his sword from his chest-ring and attaching it to his hilt, preparing for more overt battle, Axl went back into the hallway and returned to the door he saw the well-dressed caretaker go into, the placard outside reading "herbal fermentation annex".

  Not having any more time for subtlety, he charged in, the camouflage array breaking at the rapid motion. He quickly took in the small room. Three large barrels dominated most of it to his right, to his left a small desk to the side, and at the other edge, a smaller barrel, on top of which was a simple bust of an elf woman carved in wood. A pendant on the bust's neck. However, Axl's view of the bust was immediately blocked by the very angry-looking caretaker, who now had a vicious rapier in one hand and a small buckler shield in the other.

  Without hesitation, Axl slashed forward with [Webcutter], pairing the unsheathing strike with a large leap to cross the distance between them. With barely a glance, he could tell this would be the only way forward, since he'd never encountered so much aggression before, not in the various beasts he killed, not even in the gardener. His Charisma was positively screaming at him that this person was teeming with killing fury and rage, and she met his weapon with hers in a clash that pushed Axl back, his Strength surpassed.

  With a slight pivot to her stance, the rapier cut forward, Axl barely able to deflect the blow, it cutting into his side, easily slicing past his sheersilk armor. Immediately he activated the healing potion in his [Gastric Cauldron]'s orbital storage, the cut deep and freely bleeding.

  Another strike arrived soon after, and Axl had to deflect it with [Filial Deathshroud], the item blocking the unnaturally sharp cut, but the huge force still slammed into his flesh and cracked the bone underneath.

  The brief reprieve let Axl more fully channel [Mana Shroud]'s empowerment into his Attributes, but as the Skill surged, the caretaker turned the deflected strike into a thrust at his head. Without other options, Axl used [Filial Deathshroud] to attack her mind, the strike feeling like he was pushing against a thick, syrupy resistance.

  It was barely enough, the strike frozen for a fraction of a second as Axl regained his posture and threw a pair of daggers at his immobilized opponent, one with centipede poison, the other with Calcium-depleting poison. The caretaker was hit with both to her chest, the daggers biting into her wooden flesh, just deep enough to start delivering their payload.

  He gripped his sword with both hands again as her onslaught continued, Axl barely able to match her Strength and Agility with [Mana Shroud] as fully empowering his Attributes as he could. However, her attacks were far too effective, flowing effortlessly from one strike to the other, keeping him always on the defensive, almost entirely pushed back into the hallway.

  He considered using Attuned Drill Strike, but frankly didn’t think he would be able to get the attack off in time before his opponent cut him to pieces, regretting not charging in the door with the Skill fully ready to be unleashed. But he also thought the caretaker could simply dodge it, as powerful as the strike was, and then he'd be a sitting duck. He even used [Bolting Motion] twice, hoping the massive surge in speed would turn the tables, but the caretaker deflected his advances, her buckler blocking his attacks as if she knew what he was going to do before even he did.

  He was quickly running out of options, the fight suddenly more desperate than it had been even against the crossroads gardener.